Gnome CORBA applications hanging on startup

[Peter Wainwright <prw wainpr demon co uk>]

        Others have recently reported that Gnome apps hang on startup
in the last few CVS snapshots. I also encountered this on my
home machine, which is running stock RedHat 5.2 (kernel 2.0.36),
but not on my work box, which has been upgraded to 2.2.0pre4. So I
installed the same kernel on my home box, and voila! - all is OK
again.
        No doubt you Gnome developers are all running bleeding edge
kernels so may have not seen this problem. It seems to affect
CORBA-based applications, so it may be an ORBit problem.

        Attaching to the hanging processes gives the following stack
traces:
panel:
(gdb) i s
#0  0x405736f4 in __read ()
#1  0x405a16cc in __DTOR_END__ ()
#2  0x4054556c in _IO_file_underflow (fp=0x80be948) at fileops.c:303
#3  0x40546148 in __underflow (fp=0x80be948) at genops.c:249
#4  0x40543723 in _IO_getline (fp=0x80be948, buf=0xbfffcfd4 "", n=2047, 
    delim=10, extract_delim=1) at iogetline.c:47
#5  0x40542f11 in _IO_fgets (buf=0xbfffcfd4 "", n=2048, fp=0x80be948)
    at iofgets.c:47
#6  0x40112288 in name_server_by_forking (ev=0xbfffd7f8) at orbitns.c:150
#7  0x40112555 in gnome_name_service_get () at orbitns.c:242
#8  0x40111505 in goad_server_register (name_server=0x0, server=0x80ba588, 
    name=0x80891ae "gnome_panel", kind=0x80891a7 "server", ev=0x808d1f0)
    at goad.c:1066
#9  0x806ac06 in panel_corba_gtk_init (panel_orb=0x80b8df0) at extern.c:742
#10 0x8051d30 in main (argc=5, argv=0xbfffe9dc) at main.c:148
(gdb) up 6
(gdb) 
#6  0x40112288 in name_server_by_forking (ev=0xbfffd7f8) at orbitns.c:150
150                     while ((ret = fgets(iorbuf, sizeof(iorbuf), iorfh)) != NULL){


gnomecc:
(gdb) i s
#0  0x4056b662 in connect ()
#1  0x40483118 in ORBit_ORB_make_usock_connection () at orb.c:256
#2  0x40483605 in CORBA_ORB_init (argc=0xbfffe750, argv=0xbfffe764, 
    orb_identifier=0x40455e7f "orbit-local-orb", ev=0x80534f4) at orb.c:435
#3  0x40453d95 in gnorba_CORBA_init (argc=0xbfffe750, argv=0xbfffe764, 
    flags=GNORBA_INIT_SERVER_FUNC, ev=0x80534f4) at orbitgtk.c:212
#4  0x40453f51 in gnome_CORBA_init_with_popt_table (
    app_id=0x8051aab "desktop-manager", app_version=0x8051aa4 "0.99.3", 
    argc=0xbfffe750, argv=0xbfffe764, options=0x8053040, popt_flags=0, 
    return_ctx=0x0, gnorba_flags=GNORBA_INIT_SERVER_FUNC, ev=0x80534f4)
    at orbitgnome.c:93
#5  0x804d640 in control_center_corba_gtk_init (argc=0xbfffe750, 
    argv=0xbfffe764) at corba-glue.c:77
#6  0x804c707 in main (argc=1, argv=0xbfffe764) at main.c:192

balsa:
(gdb) i s
#0  0x405a6662 in connect ()
#1  0x40492118 in ORBit_ORB_make_usock_connection () at orb.c:256
#2  0x40492605 in CORBA_ORB_init (argc=0xbfffe740, argv=0xbfffe764, 
    orb_identifier=0x40463e7f "orbit-local-orb", ev=0xbfffe724) at orb.c:435
#3  0x40461d95 in gnorba_CORBA_init (argc=0xbfffe740, argv=0xbfffe764, 
    flags=GNORBA_INIT_SERVER_FUNC, ev=0xbfffe724) at orbitgtk.c:212
#4  0x40461edd in gnome_CORBA_init (app_id=0x8095b0a "balsa", 
    app_version=0x8095b04 "0.4.8", argc=0xbfffe740, argv=0xbfffe764, 
    gnorba_flags=GNORBA_INIT_SERVER_FUNC, ev=0xbfffe724) at orbitgnome.c:46
#5  0x80652a3 in balsa_init (argc=1, argv=0xbfffe764) at main.c:80
#6  0x8065430 in main (argc=1, argv=0xbfffe764) at main.c:152
(gdb) up
#1  0x40492118 in ORBit_ORB_make_usock_connection () at orb.c:256
256                     ret = connect(usfd, &saddr, SUN_LEN(&saddr));
(gdb) p saddr
$1 = {sun_family = 1, 
  sun_path = "/tmp/orbit-prw/orb-135860899702094323"}


Peter Wainwright
Home: prw@wainpr.demon.co.uk   Work: peter.wainwright@nrpb.org.uk
http://www.wainpr.demon.co.uk
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